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Ruby Ruby Loops Build a Simple Contact List Hash and Array Iteration

Posted by henrywojnicki2
henrywojnicki2
5,095 Points

could this question be explained in other words that would be great.

please explain

contact_list.rb 
contact_list = [
  {"name" => "Jason", "phone_number" => "123"},
  {"name" => "Nick", "phone_number" => "456"}
]
Mike Hickman
Mike Hickman
19,817 Points
Mike Hickman
Mike Hickman
19,817 Points

Hi Henry,

Did you get this figured out?

Mike

henrywojnicki2
henrywojnicki2
5,095 Points

sorry. I forgot to write the instructions. No I did not figure it out. It is from the ruby loops course I think.

3 Answers

Garret Saarinen
Garret Saarinen
3,942 Points
Garret Saarinen
Garret Saarinen
3,942 Points

Got it. I wasn't sure what you were asking about.

For this exercise, it wants you to iterate over each element in the array so using the each method 

contact_list.each

and assign each element in the array to a block variable called contact

contact_list.each do |contact|

The next part of printing out the values for each element is tricky because each element in the array is a hash with keys and values. The syntax needs to have a little more nuance because you are only supposed to print out the values so you need to pass in the key-

contact_list.each do |contact|
   puts "Name: #{contact["name"]} PH: #{contact["phone_number"]}"
end

The contact part in the puts statement is block variable that is representing each hash in the contact_list array. Because it's a hash you have to add the ["name"] to indicate you want the value for just that key.

Hope that helps.

Garret Saarinen
Garret Saarinen
3,942 Points
Garret Saarinen
Garret Saarinen
3,942 Points

An array is like a container or list holding a certain number of things.

Big Jar

  • marble
  • block

etc.

In this example, each "thing" inside the Big Jar (array) is a hash ( denoted by the { } symbols ) that just contains some more specific information about itself.

So the example above could be written more like this:

Big Jar [

  • {"name" => "marble", "shape" => "sphere"},
  • {"name" => "block", "shape" => "cube"}

]

or 

big_jar = [
{"name" => "marble", "shape" => "sphere"},
{"name" => "block", "shape" => "cube"}
]

Hope that helps! `

henrywojnicki2
henrywojnicki2
5,095 Points
henrywojnicki2
henrywojnicki2
5,095 Points

I'm aware what an array is and what a hash is but the challenge instructions are not clear. If someone could explain the instructions to me that would help or else ill just have to ignore this challenge.